AI's Use of Food on the Offensive

I've been playing a lot of Hegemony Gold lately and one thing I've noticed a lot, especially on the Ionian Campaign, is the AI's somewhat poor management offood in regards to keeping their armies fed.

I've found that at least on that particular campaign I was in no threat from Athens since anytime they tried to attack me, by the time they reached me they were already half out of food, then shortly after trying to siege me they would route do to lack of food, I didn't even need to fight them off.

I know the challenge in this game comes more when attacking enemy cities but I would at least like to feel threatened a little from enemy attacks as well. Shouldn't the AI at least know how to bring workers with their armies carrying food?

I've just started a Sandbox game as Sparta earlier today too, and even though the faction I'm fighting to the west isn't all that far away it seems like I canjust huddle up in side my city, wait for the invading army to starve and eventually route. I mean isn't it them whose supposed to be starving me out?

----- I'm sorry if I seem like I'm being a little over critical, I do love this game, I really do. This is just something that seems to stick out. I alreadyplay on expert and am trying to get as much challenge as I can from the game. The Macedonia campaign seemed a little easy but I've only gotten about 15 hoursthrough it. I tried playing with recruiting off, but it just doesn't seem right, I would play an option like recruitment 'low' but off just doesn't seem like an option to provide more challenge in a realistic way. I do admit the sandbox mode and Ionian campaign are more challenging so I'm enjoyingthose, I've yet to try the other one but will check it out in not to long a time.

Not a lot that can be done about that. The AI just doesn't prioritse supply. Also, what food settings are you playing on? Normal or high?

The thing is that big attacks are normally not much of a threat, its the smaller raids that can be the most damaging. Having a force of 4 cavalry units come into your land and then spilt up and burn as many farms and destroy as many mines as they can has crippled me in early campaigns.

The current challenge I am doing is some self limitation. Sure I can build a huge army and power game to victory but its more fun to use my Hyspatists and Companions ONLY and to try and take over. Battles tend to be quite a bit more difficult and tactical than just throwing phalangites at the enemy. I have managed to lose a major battles where I get surrounded or worn down. The game is far more challenging and quite a bit more fun.

Try some self limiting campaigns and see how you like things if the normal game is too easy.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll admit getting the AI to manage their supplies on a large invasion was one of the more difficult parts of writing the AI and there is probably room for improvement. Specifically, there are a lot of factors involved in how much food a mixed army needs for a long march followed by combat and a siege and I tried to strike a balance between being too conservative and having the AI attack less and be more aggressive and take more risks.

The situation will be a little different in Hegemony Rome as players and the AI will now also have the option to set up a camp when they move into a new area and connect a supply line back to a friendly city to automatically move more supplies into an area to support a siege or extended campaign.

The main faction groups in Hegemony Rome are the Romans, Gauls, Germans and Britons and each of the these groups will be divided into smaller factions based on individual tribes like the Belgae or Suebi.